I finally received my copy of Level-5 and Brownie Brown's Fantasy Life (FL) for the 3DS last night. It's a game that I've been looking forward to (and praying for a Western release of) for some time. Although I'm not terribly keen on the Prof Layton games, Level 5's pure RPG titles have always been amongst my favorites in the genre. Their focus on fun, brightly colored visuals and item collection have always appealed to me in a big way. FL promises alot of the pleasant, low-stress, addictive, life-sim fun of Nintendo's Animal Crossing but features the addition of more concrete goals and combat - which is something that I can't say "no" to. I won't have time to really sink my teeth into the game for afew weeks - but I did boot up the game and at least make my character and get through the prologue. I was disappointed with the beard options, so I made a cute girl with purple hair instead. I'm starting out as a tailor. The game is super charming so far.

Although the Western release isn't the "complete" package re-release that Japan saw (we have to buy the bonus island as paid DLC), we are getting the multiplayer component that originally had to be bought separately as part of our standard package. I wanted to start a thread up to talk about the game, and create a space where squadies who bought it could hook up to play together.

Rampant Bicycle wrote:Am presently carrying a copy of this around in my bag for when I finish Bravely Default.

Of course, first I must...well, actually finish Bravely Default, which is taking a while.

It took me a month of trying out different strategies until I could finally beat one of the final bosses in Bravely Default's true ending. We should have another thread dedicated to that game too. I love it so much. And YES, I even love the much reviled final 3rd portion.

Spiritmaster -> Make everybody absorb elementsDark Knight x2 -> power that does dark x5, THEN power that does mass dark to everything on the board. Party & Dark Knight(s) regenerate HP via dark absorption

Polygon hates it, but who cares? I'm in the middle of screwing around in the game's first act. Been carting it around on transit since finishing Danganrompa 2, so far so good.

I feel like the shelf life for an experience like this is pretty minimal so I'm gonna make jobs until I get bored. I've never been 100% onside with a lot of Level 5s RPGs. I feel like despite being hailed as a Japanese powerhouse of game development, I always have at least 1 serious problem with each game they release. In short, I find Level 5 fails to slam dunk consistently. Games like Ni No Kuni are gorgeous but bloated and written at a very simplistic level. Rogue Galaxy had a core of goodness but was bloated many times over with needless grind. Layton does this weird thing with its writing where everything goes fucking gonzo at the last minute which is either a bug or a feature. Fantasy Life is mechanically shallow without Zelda's depth and twee as hell to boot, which isn't inherently bad but is quite a jolt when you come off Dungeon of the Endless. I mean, yes, these are games designed to be played by the Lego videogame set and I'm not hating, but I fear that the 1000th blacksmithing job I complete will be exactly like the 2nd blacksmithing job. I'm not sure if there is a way to make the experience of crafting as fun as the experience of fighting.

I began the game as a Paladin, leveled myself up to level 9 pretty much immediately by just curb stomping enemies out in the fields for a few subway rides. Managed to get to a point where I entered a cave full of sparkling gems that I couldn't harvest because apparently I can't Mining. Eff that. Changed lives back to miner, lumberjack, fisherman etc. Sweeping up low level stuff and learning basic manouvres.

I'm not bored yet, but Animal Crossing has never been my jam. I am extremely goal oriented, and not in the Timewasting Collect 10 Things school of goal orientation.

That said, please join me online! Fantasy friends can only make this game more interesting. I suspect that multiplayer is the way to find the joy in these sorts of experiences ultimately. What does Monster Hunter have to offer the singleplayer guy either? Not a hell of a lot.

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Since 2005, the Squadron of Shame has been embedded at the vanguard of underappreciated, obscure and noteworthy videogames.